Summary:Â We’ve increased the cast range and reduced the mana cost of Phosphorus Bomb while adding in a new mechanic to the ability so that bombs are now lobbed before exploding instead of instantly damaging an area. We’ve also reduced Gatling Gun’s mana cost and increased Missile Barrage’s total attack damage ratio at later levels.

Context:Â By adding more gameplay depth to Phosphorous Bomb, we can more effectively balance Corki’s abilities, especially his mana costs. Historically, Corki was too dependent on his overpowering early game damage, allowing him to abuse his lane opponents and snowball the game. Now that we’ve addressed that issue, we have room to make him more competitive in the later parts of the game.

Now lobs a bomb through the air that explodes at the end location, instead of instantly damaging the area

Cast range increasedÂ from 600 to 825

Now additionally grants vision while the missile is in the air

Gatling Gun ( E )

Mana cost reduced from 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80Â to 50 at all ranks

Missile Barrage ( R )

Total Attack Damage ratio increasedÂ from 20% to 20 / 30 / 40%

Â Â Gragas

Summary:Â Barrel Roll’s cast range has been decreased, but to compensate we’ve slightly changed the mechanics of the ability. Now, if a player continually presses the hotkey for Barrel Roll just as the barrel reaches its destination, it will immediately explode on arrival. Body Slam now deals full damage to all targets hit and has a longer cooldown that’s cut in half whenever Gragas collides with a unit.

Context:Â We want to reward Gragas for fighting strategically in close combat as opposed to sniping opponents with his barrel. The changes to Body Slam encourage Gragas to get into the fight if he wants to hit his full damage potential and maximize his mobility.

Barrel Roll ( Q )

Now has a small buffer before the barrel reaches its destination (not when Gragas casts it) where Barrel Roll can be activated again to explode on arrival

Cast range reduced from 1100 to 950

Body Slam ( E )

Now deals full damage to all targets hit (rather than divided amongst them)

Cooldown increased from 7Â to 12 seconds

Cooldown reduced by half if Gragas collides with a unit

Â Â Morgana

Context:Â Sometimes we want to adjust a champion’s overall power without affecting their balance and functionality, we first look for ways to add gameplay and readability for their opponents. In Morgana’s case, that means displaying the radius of Soul Shackles to both Morgana and her victims.

Soul Shackles ( R )

Now displays the leash radius to Morgana and her victims for the duration of the effect

Â Â Â Nasus

Context:Â Nasus has received a visual update! By hitting Nasus’ sustain in the early levels, we’re hoping to tone down his ability to indefinitely stay in lanes by playing passively. Opponents should be able to capitalize on harassing Nasus in the early game if they don’t want him to become an unstoppable force in the late game.

Summary:Â We’ve changed the mechanics of Javelin Toss so that it now gains bonus â€œtravelâ€ damage only if the ability travels further than Nidalee’s human auto attack range. Additionally, we’ve changed the damage calculations to be based on where the ability was cast from, instead of where Nidalee is when the Javelin hits the target. Weâ€™re also reducing Bushwhackâ€™s vision and armor/magic resistance shred duration.

Context:Â We wanted to clarify that the optimal way to play against AP Nidalee is to get up close and personal in order to limit her poke damage. Bushwhackâ€™s old debuff duration was oppressively long given current game flow, so we shortened it.

Javelin Toss ( Q )

Now calculates damage based on where the Javelin was initially cast rather than where Nidalee is when the Javelin hits the target

Summary:Â Boomerang Blade will do less base damage and scales with total attack damage instead of bonus AD. As a tradeoff for stripping some early to midgame power, we’re making it so that each target hit by Boomerang Blade will feel it a little more.

Context:Â In the early game, when Sivir gets slightly ahead with attack damage items, she can deal a large amount of burst damage with just one well-placed Boomerang Blade. This allowed her to shut down her opponents and control the lane. We didn’t want to simply nerf all of Sivir’s numbers, so we approached her changes with two goals in mind. First, reduce Boomerang Blade’s burst damage on a single target during the laning phase and midgame. Second, allow Boomerang Blade to remain strong in AoE situations, especially later in the game, to be more in line with Sivir’s strengths.

Summary:Â We’re taking some of the hidden power away from Vayne’s Condemn. Â The targets she condemns will no longer be unable to act at the end of the effect unless she stuns them against a wall. Additionally, we’ve removed the ability for Vayne to get a free auto attack on her victims while condemning them away.

Context:Â Similar to our Morgana changes, when we want to reduce some power on a champion without directly reducing their numbers, we first look to introduce more gameplay for opponents or to shave off hidden power. Highly-skilled Vayne players were getting a lot of trading power in lane by landing a free basic attack on a champion after hitting them with Condemn.

Condemn ( E )

Vayne can no longer queue up a basic attack on a champion after hitting them with Condemn.

Fixed a bug where the target would be briefly unable to act at the end of the effect, even if they did not hit a wall.

Condemn now deals all damage after knocking the target back. Wall hits are now displayed as critical strikes.

Context:Â We’re making changes to the way abilities scale on champions designed for the support role. Our goal is to emphasize utility and protection over damage output and, with more gold flowing to supports, we had to tweak numbers to ensure certain champions didn’t become too oppressively powerful.

Summary:Â We’re removing Janna’s global passive and making it a local effect while increasing the movement speed bonus. We’ve also reduced the overall damage of Howling Gale, but it will scale more with ability power the longer it is charged. The active and passive movement speed affecting portions of Zephyr now also scale with ability power. The ability power ratio of Eye of the Storm’s shield has been reduced, but it now has the added benefit of providing additional attack damage based on Janna’s AP.

Context:Â We’ve been saying for a while that we wanted to hit global passives that provide hidden power, and we’re using this opportunity to tweak Janna’s Tailwind. As for her Tornados, the additional ability power scaling per second means that Janna will need to fully charge her Howling Gale in order to do high damage at end game.

Tailwind ( Passive )

Tailwind is now local instead of global (800 range)

Tailwind movement speed buff increased from 3%Â to 5%

Howling Gale ( Q )

Now gains +0.1 Ability Power ratio per second that Howling Gale is charged before release

Attack Damage buff of the shield now scales at +1 Attack Damage per 10 Ability Power (0.1 AP ratio)

Ability Power ratio reduced from 0.9Â to 0.7

Â Â Â Â Leona

Context:Â As a result of their positioning in team fights, support tanks often require more survivability to make their contributions felt. We believe Leona has the tools to provide consistent disruption in team fights, but we wanted to bolster her survivability and let her evolve into a full tank as the game progresses.

Summary:Â Several aspects of Lulu’s kit are being adjusted to scale with ability power in this patch. The damage of Pix, Faerie Companion, Glitterlance’s minimum slow decay and Whimsy’s movement speed boost now all scale with AP. However, we did remove the AP bonus from Whimsy and slightly lowered its base movement speed buff.

Context:Â As with the other supports, our goal with Lulu is to focus on utility, not damage. The changes that best demonstrate this philosophy are the buffs to Pix, Faerie Companion and Whimsy. These better highlight Lulu’s ability to bolster high attack speed allies and grant large speed boosts where needed. With Glitterlance, we wanted to improve her slow as she gained additional ability power, but didn’t want to alter her strong base value.

Summary:Â We’ve reduced the ability power ratio of Aqua Prison and Tidal Wave but buffed Surging Tides along with Ebb and Flow. The bonus movement speed of Surging Tides and bounce power of Ebb and Flow now both scale with ability power. In fact, with enough AP, subsequent bounces of Ebb and Tide will actually heal and damage more per bounce.

Context:Â While Nami’s general scaling is in a good place, we saw opportunities to add additional utility to her movement speed buffs and debuffs. The most unique change with Nami’s AP utility scaling is on Ebb and Flow. Additional AP now improves the power of each bounce and can eventually reach positive values where each bounce is more powerful than the last.

Summary:Â With new gold flowing into Sona’s support coffers, it turns out Crescendo and Hymn of Valor would rock just a little too hard. We’ve reduced the ability power ratio on both, as well as adjusting the base heal amount of Aria of Perseverance at later ranks. She can still hit the high notes with her Power Chords, though, and we’ve added an AP ratio that’ll allow Sona to scale better into the late game. Finally, the base activated speed boost of Song of Celerity has been slightly reduced, as it now scales its speed bonus with ability power.

Context:Â Our core focus with Sona is to take some power from her abilities to shift into her Power Chord and her Song of Celerity, which allows Sona’s utility to scale into the late game while also ensuring her choice of Power Chord remains relevant at all stages.

Power Chord ( Passive )

Added a 0.2 Ability Power ratio to the damage of Power Chord â€“ Staccato

Added a 0.02 Ability Power ratio to the damage reduction of Power Chord – Diminuendo

Added a 0.04 Ability Power ratio to the slow amount of Power Chord – Tempo

Summary:Â Soraka’s base health, health per level and base armor are all being increased and she has a new passive that makes her health/mana restoring abilities more effective when the target is missing more health or mana. Starcall now scales its magic resistance shred with ability power and if Soraka hits at least one champion with it, Astral Blessing’s cooldown is reduced. Astral Blessing has been changed so its armor buff now scales with ability power. We saw an opportunity to add a new mechanic to Infuse, allowing Soraka to use her own mana as either a donation or for additional damage depending on who she targets. Turns out Wishes should probably not ignore untargetable allies, so now Soraka’s ultimate affects everyone on your team.

Context:Â Our changes are focused on giving Soraka additional utility scaling and rewarding tactical plays in the middle of combat. We also introduced more gameplay to Soraka’s kit that promotes that in-combat healing style rather than being a simple health and mana battery.

Base Stats

Base health increasedÂ from 375 to 405

Health per level increasedÂ from 71 to 76

Base Armor increased from 7.4 to 9.4

Salvation (Â NEW Passive )

Soraka’s health and mana restoring abilities are 1% more effective for each 2% health or mana the target is missing

Summary:Â We’re switching up Taric’s passive so after each spell cast, his next auto attack is empowered to deal 30% of Taric’s armor as magic damage and reduce the cooldown of his abilities. Imbue’s AP ratio is lower and now also scales with a percentage of Taric’s bonus health. We’ve also removed the AP scaling of Shatter as well as lowered its base damage. Shatter now scales even more with armor, and the shred scales with a percentage of Taric’s armor. Finally, we’ve lowered the ability power ratios of Dazzle and Radiance, as well as increased their cooldowns.

Context:Â Overall we are adding additional depth and skill differentiation to Taric’s gameplay through a rework of his passive. Additionally, as a tanky (and fabulous) support that excels in the middle of a team fight, we’ve introduced more defensive scaling for Taric to further define his intended role.

Gemcraft ( NEW Passive )

NEW:Â After casting a spell, Taric gains a buff that deals 30% of his total Armor as bonus Magic Damage his next auto attack

Passive empowered attacks reduce the cooldown of all abilities by 2 seconds

Item Changes

Context:Â Because of our changes to the vision system (ward functionality, ward limits and trinkets), we’re removing Oracle’s Elixir from the game. We’ll continue monitoring the vision system changes and make adjustments as needed.

The following items have been removed from the game:

Eleisa’s Miracle

Oracle’s Elixir

The following items have been remade (see below for details on new items):

Wards

Context:Â Support players were often expected to shoulder the warding burden on the map. With these changes, we want to encourage all players on the team to participate in providing vision for their team. We also want to introduce more dynamic gameplay within the vision system and most of our underlying changes reflect this philosophy.Â You can read more about our changes to the vision system on the microsite.

Sight Wards

Sight (Green) wards renamed to “Stealth Wards”

Sight wards limited to a max of 3 placed per player

Ward tooltips display how many stealth wards are currently placed

Â Sightstone / Ruby Sightstone

Sightstone no longer have their own restriction, but are restricted by your stealth ward cap

Vision Wards

Vision (Pink) wards no longer stealthed

Vision wards have 5 health

Vision wards have infinite duration

Vision wards cost reduced from 125 to 75

Vision wards limited to 1 placed on the map per player

General

Placing a ward will now display your ward count and the ward that will be destroyed.

Vision Trinkets (Summoner’s Rift Only)

Added a 7th item slot, which can only contain a vision trinket

Players can switch their trinkets at the store at any time by selling their trinket, but this puts the new trinket on a 180 second cooldown.

Jungle

Damage reduced from 460 + (lvl x30)Â to 390-1000 based on champion level

Context:Â Gold income for junglers wasn’t scaling appropriately for dedicated jungle farmers and jungle difficulty was out of line with what we thought was appropriate. Here we’ve introduced monster levels that link with jungle difficulty and rewards.

Jungle monsters now have levels

Jungle monster level is based on the average level of the champions in the game when they spawn (equal to the average of all champion levels, rounded up)

Jungle monster level determines their HP / Damage and XP / Gold value

Context:Â Junglers who fall behind had no opportunity to catch up, so now Jungle monsters grant bonus XP to champions who are lower level than the monster they killed.

Jungle monsters grant 50% bonus XP per level to lower-level champions, up to a cap

Context:Â With such a wealth of cooldown reduction options available, Crest of the Ancient Golem was causing a greater swing in lane control than we’d like.

Crest of the Ancient Golem (‘Blue Buff’)

Cooldown Reduction reduced to 10% (from 20%)

Jungle Monster Statistics

Summary:Â Jungle Monsters have been tuned to better fit the revised items and flow of the game.

Â Ancient Golem

Health increased from 1400 to 1500

Gold reducedÂ from 66 to 60

Elder Lizard

Health increasedÂ from 1400 to 1500

Gold reduced from 66 to 60

Lizard

Attack Damage increasedÂ from 11 to 12

Experience reducedÂ from 50 to 20

Gold increasedÂ from 5 to 7

Giant Wolf

Attack Damage increasedÂ from 35 to 40

Experience reducedÂ from 170 to 110

Gold reducedÂ from 55 to 40

No longer critically strikes

Wolf

Attack Damage increasedÂ from 8 to 14

Experience increasedÂ from 10 to 25

Gold increased from 4 to 8

No longer critically strikes

Golem

Attack Damage increasedÂ from 59 to 60

Experience reducedÂ from 160 to 140

Small Golem

Health increasedÂ from 300 to 450

Experience increasedÂ from 38 to 40

Wraith

Experience reducedÂ from 103 to 90

Gold increasedÂ from 30 to 35

Lesser Wraith

Health increasedÂ from 150 to 250

Attack Damage increasedÂ from 10 to 12

Experience increasedÂ from 4 to 20

Gold increasedÂ from 3 to 4

Wight (New Camp)

1400 Health

75 Attack Damage

15 Armor

60 Gold

150 Experience

Map Objectives

Context:Â To reduce the early snowball effect of Dragon and to give it mid-game comeback value, Dragon now gives global gold and local experience based on its level while also doling out additional bonus experience for champions who are far behind in level. The Dragon level updates constantly, unlike other jungle monsters who level up when they spawn.

Dragon level minimum: 6, maximum: 15

Dragon local XP: 150 to 510 based on Dragon’s level, divided between nearby allied Champions

Dragon global Gold: 125 to 260 based on Dragon’s level given to all allied Champions

If the killing team is lower average level than their opponents, Dragon grants a bonus XP of +25% per average level difference

Bonus XP is sharply increased for the lowest level members of the team, +15% per number of levels behind Dragon squared (max total +200% extra)

Turrets

Context:Â Turrets gave equal amounts of global gold when destroyed, despite outer turrets being that’s lane’s objective. While some of this is beneficial, we don’t believe a lane should lose simply because another lane lost their outer turret too early.

Outer turrets now grant 100 global gold per player and 150 gold split among the players who participate in destroying the turret

Inner turrets now grant 125 global gold per player and 100 gold split among the players who participate in destroying the turret

Inhibitor turrets now grant 175 global gold per player

Context:Â The player experience for last hitting under turrets was inconsistent between high attack damage champions and supports or mages. We’ve adjusted turret base damage and damage against minions to make last hitting under turrets more consistent across all roles.

Base damage adjusted to match minion health growth

Base damage against minions increased to make last-hitting under turrets consistent

Context:Â Global experience on the outer towers has led to weird cases in lane, like levelling up other lanes accidentally. We’re shifting this global experience to a phase of the game where it’ll be more appreciated and less likely to cause odd level ups and snowball advantages.

Outer turrets no longer give 30 global XP when destroyed

Inhibitor turrets now give 100 global XP when destroyed (from 70)

Context:Â Defending against a split pusher is extremely taxing and ultimately unrewarding. We’ve made this change to help teams defending against extended periods of split pushing. A successful split push needs to do more than inflict light damage to the tower over time.

Inhibitor turrets gain 15 Health Regen per 5 seconds

Inhibitors

Context:Â Losing an inhibitor often puts a team behind for a long period of time with few opportunities for retaliation. This was because a downed inhibitor also granted a global buff to minions in all lanes. We want more comeback opportunities for teams who can capitalize on winning teamfights, even with a downed inhibitor.

Inhibitor death timers reduced to 4 minutes (from 5 minutes)

Inhibitors no longer grant a global buff to all minions when destroyed

Inhibitors now grant a stronger damage and durability buff to minions in their specific lane

Context:Â Early death timers were a little too punishing, especially given the importance of the early game. We’ve shaved a few seconds from this to help reduce early lane snowballing.

Early game death timers now start at 7.5 seconds (from 12) and scale to the same values over the course of the game

Minion Experience

Context:Â Minions becoming worth more experience over time creates a severe experience discrepancy between champions who can farm and split push late game compared to champions who are forced to siege or participate in objective control. We’re removing this discrepancy because it causes the former to spike in levels and gives an unfair advantage. Since this could potentially create some snowballing consequences, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this and could make further changes if necessary.

Lane Minions are no longer worth more experience based on game time

Minions still become worth more gold and gain more statistics over time

Lane Minions now have a level equal to the average level of champions in the game

Currently this has no effect on the game but will be expanded upon in the future

Experience Curve

Reduced experience required to level by roughly 10% per level to compensate for the above minion change

Bounty Adjustments

Context:Â Echoing our above change with early death timers being too punishing at the early game, we’ve adjusted gold income to better match how games flow.

Kills are worth 60% of the base reward at 2 minutes, scaling to 100% at 4 minutes

Assists are worth 50% of the kill value before 20 minutes and then they linearly increase up to 80% at 35 minutes

Assist Bonus Gold

Context:Â We’re adding an additional reward to players who get a lot of assists. We want these players to feel their contributions to fights, even if they have few opportunities to pick up kills.

If players have 2 more assists than kills they earn 30 additional Gold per assist

Additional assists increase this bonus by 15 Gold, capping at 60 Gold

This gold cannot be more than the original value of the kill

Minion Death Spree Reduction

Context:Â Single-minded pushing and proxy farming are fairly destructive methods of playing the game, mostly due to the fact that those champions are not accurately valued for their participation in the game.

Every 1000 gold earned from minions / monsters reduces your death spree by 1 death

Context:Â We’ve added a few new masteries! Masteries are a great way for players to tailor their play experience based on the role they want to fill. We want players to feel like they are committing to a playstyle when they invest heavily in a specific tree, so we’re revising masteries to scale as the game grows longer and to have more impact for each role.

Ranked

General PVP.net Updates

We’ve fiddled with the client so you can now do things like mass dismiss notifications and suppress notification popups

We’ve also given the friends list and notifications a makeover, and overhauled the way notifications work significantly

Group Chat’s been reworked and will generally perform faster and smoother across the board

Your skin selection will now lock in place a few moments before you enter the loading screen! Previously, you could still flick through your skins up to the last second, only to be met with a friendly â€œError: Nullâ€ message if you attempted to select a different skin

In-Game UI

Context:Â Health bars give vital information in-game but become muddled and difficult to read when you and your team are bunched together. We’re updating them to deliver important information at a glance while also allowing for instant identification of your champion, your allies and your enemies.

Bonus damage for charging decreasedÂ from 20/30/40/50/60Â to 14/20/25/30/35

Zephyr (W)

Movement speed % passive now has a 0.04 AP Ratio

AP ratio reducedÂ from 0.6 to 0.5

Movement speed % slow now has a 0.12 AP ratio

Eye of the Storm (E)

Now grants additional AD to allies its cast on (0.33 AP)

Summary:Â Jannaâ€™s global passive has been converted to a localized area (equivalent to sight range). Howling Galeâ€™s AP ratio has been significantly lowered but gains a scaling AP ratio per second it is charged. Zephyrâ€™s self-haste and slow amount on the active cast now scale with AP although the base slow has been lowered. Eye of the Stormâ€™s bonus AD given to allies now scales with AP. Monsoon remains unchanged.

Context:Â Weâ€™ve been saying for a while that we wanted to change all global passives that provide a lot of â€œhiddenâ€ power, like Twisted Fateâ€™s old passive, and were finally able to tackle Jannaâ€™s Tailwind passive with her new utility scaling. The Howling Gale change looks like a significant nerf to Jannaâ€™s AP ratio, but the additional AP scaling per second means that Janna will need to fully charge her Howling Gale in order to do high damage at end game with her additional Ability Power.

Â

Â Â Â Â Leona

Eclipse ( W )

Armor and magic resist bonus reduced from 30/40/50/60/70Â to 25/35/45/55/65

Diminishing effect % on bounces can now be decreased with AP (from 15% to 0% at 200 AP). More than 200 AP makes bounces have a greater effect

Tidecaller’s Blessing ( E )

Slow % now has a 0.05 AP ratio

Tidal Wave ( R )

AP ratio reduced Â from 0.7Â to 0.6

Summary:Â Namiâ€™s passive now scales in higher movement speed with the more Ability Power she gets. Ebb and Flowâ€™s heal / damage bounces now scale with Ability Power, meaning with enough Ability Power, Nami can heal / deal more damage per additional bounce rather than having it fall off. The slow on Tidecallerâ€™s Blessing now scales with Ability Power.

Summary:Â Sorakaâ€™s health and mana restoring abilities are more effective the more the targeted unit is missing health / mana. Astral Blessingâ€™s armor granted now scales with ability power. Starcallâ€™s magic resistance reduction scales with AP and each time Soraka hits at least one enemy champion with Starcall she reduces the cooldown of Astral Blessing by a base percentage. Infuse now partially donates a portion of Sorakaâ€™s maximum mana to the targeted ally and its damage also scales with her maximum mana (in addition to an ability power ratio). Wish now affects untargetable allies and with Sorakaâ€™s new passive is more effective on targets below 40% health but less effective on targets above 40% health.

Context:Â We wanted to provide a link between Soraka’s primary offensive ability and her core niche identity as a defensive support. Additionally, we took this opportunity to introduce more gameplay into Sorakaâ€™s kit so that she will be rewarded more heavily for successful plays.

Â Â Â Taric

Gemcraft ( Passive )

Reworked: After casting a spell, Taric’s next basic attack deals bonus magic damage based on his 40% of his Armor and reduces his cooldowns.

Imbue ( Q )

Cooldown lowered from 20/19/18/17/16Â to 18/17/16/15/14

Heal AP ratio reducedÂ from 0.6 to 0.3

Now additionally heals for 5% of Taric’s bonus health

Mana cost reducedÂ from 80/95/110/125/140Â to 60/80/100/120/140

Basic attacks no longer reduce the cooldown of the ability

Shatter ( W )

Damage lowered from 50/90/130/170/210Â to 40/80/120/160/200

AP Ratio removed

Armor Ratio increased from 0.2 to 0.5

Dazzle ( E )

AP ratio reduced from 0.4. – 0.8Â to 0.2 – 0.4

Cooldown increased from 14/13/12/11/10Â to 18/17/16/15/14

Radiance ( R )

Cooldown increasedÂ from 60 at all ranks to 75

Damage AP ratio loweredÂ from 0.7 to 0.5

Summary:Â Taricâ€™s passive now gives him a buff that deals 40% of his armor as bonus magic damage after casting a spell â€“ each empowered auto attack landed also reduces all of Taricâ€™s cooldowns by 2 seconds. Imbue now scales with 5% of Taricâ€™s bonus health, although the AP ratio has been lowered. Shatter now solely scales with Taricâ€™s armor and not Ability Power. Dazzle has had its AP ratio reduced. Radiance has had its AP ratio lowered and cooldown increased.

Context:Â Our core goals with Taric were to make his passive a more interesting and involving ability while also opening up more build opportunities. Instead of giving Taric high AP ratios for huge burst, we want to push him to build more tanky with his new gold income to further cement his role as a tanky front-line support with strong burst / aura capabilities.*

Trinkets

Summary: With this preseason we want to diffuse the responsibility of vision from being a single player burden to a team-wide job. Additionally, we want to infuse more gameplay into the vision game with additional functionality and the addition of trinkets.

Wards

Support players were expected to shoulder the majority of the warding burden on the map. Because they could place as many ward as they could afford, this meant all of the support income was best spent on warding. We want all players on the team to participate in warding and providing vision to their team.

Oracle’s Elixir

Removed

Weâ€™re removing Oracle’s Elixir as it has traditionally been a major drain on support and jungler item builds, and has also traditionally been far too binary in controlling early game vision.

Â Sight Wards

Renamed to Stealth Wards

Limited to 3 per player

Vision Wards

Cost reduced from 100 to 75

Limited to 1 on map

Now have 5 health up from 3

No longer have a duration

No longer invisible

Vision Wards being superior in every respect to Sight Wards has created some weird escalation cases where there is simply an unending cycle of ‘Pink’ Ward destruction. By positioning Vision Wards as having different strengths and trade-offs – we hope to create a better defined role for both Sight and Vision Wards.

Other items

Aegis of the Legion

Cost increased from 1900 to 1950 gold

Avarice Blade

Now reads “Limited to 1 Gold Income Item”

Banner of Command

Cost increased from 2340 to 2400

Cooldown reduction increased from 10% to 20%

AP increased from 40 to 80

No longer grants HP/5 or Armor

Doran’s Blade

Cost reducedÂ from 475 to 440

Attack damage lowered from 10 to 8

Passive now grants 3 health per hit for ranged and 5 health per hit for melee from 5 health per hit for anyone.

Eleisa’s Miracle

No longer reduces the cooldowns of Summoner Spells

Enthropy

Cost decreased to 3475 from 3500

Locket of the Iron Solari

Cost increased to 2550 from 2500

Long Sword

Cost decreased to 360 from 400

Madred’s Razors

Armor reduced from 25 to 20

Mikael’s Crucible

Cost lowered from 2500 to 1600

No longer grants HP/5

MP/5 reduced from 18 to 12

Â Â Â Ohmwrecker

Cost decreased from 2835 to 2000

No longer grants 15 HP/5 and 15 MP/5

Phage

Cost decreased from 1350 to 1325

Â Â The Black Cleaver

Cost decreased from 3000 to 2920

The Bloodthrister

Cost decreased from 3200 to 3000

Trinity Force

Cost decreased from 3728 to 3703

Twin Shadows

Price increased from 1900 to 2000

AP increased from 40 to 50

Will of the Ancients

Cost reduced from 2550 to 2000

Now grants 10% CD

Now grants 10 MP/5

Zeke’s Herald

Cost decreased from 2650 to 2450

Jungle Changes

The gold income for a primary jungler wasn’t scaling appropriately for dedicated jungle farmers. Similarly, the jungle difficulty was out of line with what we thought was appropriate. Now the jungle difficulty is shown by monster level and the difficulty/rewards are linked to the monster level.

Jungle monsters now have levels

Jungle monster level is based on the average level of the champions in the game when they spawn (equal to average of all champion levels, rounded up)

Jungle monster level determines their HP/Damage and XP/Gold value

Jungle monsters grant 50% bonus XP per level to lower-level champions, up to a cap

Added an extra camp (the Wight) near the Blue Golem and Wolves

Crest of the Ancient Golem (â€œBlue Buffâ€)Crest of the Ancient Golem is too powerful at the moment, especially with such a wealth of cooldown reduction options available.

Cooldown Reduction reduced to 10% from 20%

Jungle Monster StatisticsAll jungle monsters have been retuned to better fit the new items being introduced as well as the new flow of the gameAncient Golem

Health increased to 1500 from 1400

Gold reduced to 60 from 66

Elder Lizard

Health increased to 1500 from 1400

Gold reduced to 60 from 66

Lizard

Attack Damage reduced to 10 from 11

Experience reduced to 20 from 50

Gold increased to 7 from 5

Giant Wolf

Attack Damage increased to 40 from 35

Experience reduced to 110 from 170

Gold reduced to 40 from 55

Wolf

Attack Damage increased to 14 from 8

Experience increased to 25 from 10

Gold increased to 8 from 4

Golem

Attack Damage increased to 55 from 54

Experience reduced to 140 from 160

Small Golem

Health increased to 450 from 300

Attack Damage reduced to 25 from 30

Experience increased to 40 from 38

Wraith

Experience reduced to 90 from 103

Gold increased to 35 from 30

Lesser Wraith

Health increased to 250 from 150

Attack Damage increased to 12 from 10

Experience increased to 20 from 4

Gold increased to 4 from 3

Wight (New Camp)

1400 Health

75 Attack Damage

15 Armor

55 Gold

150 Experience

Summoner Spell Changes

Summary: We want to increase diversity with summoner spell choices in League of Legends. Additionally, weâ€™ve done our annual overhaul of masteries and you can check them out in-game.

Certain summoner spells have become firmly entrenched within the League of Legends metagame while others have stagnated. We are tweaking summoner spells to make picking non-standard summoner spells a reasonable choice.

Now a targeted spell, casting this on yourself will target you and the closest nearby ally

Cast Range increased to 900 from 600

Cooldown reduced to 180 seconds from 300 seconds

Grants 30% movespeed to both targets for 1 second

Teleport

Cooldown reduced to 180 seconds when targetting an allied building

Cooldown increased to 300 seconds when cancelled or interrupted

Cleanse

Successfully cleansing an effect that prevents you from moving creates a shockwave that knocks nearby enemy’s back slightly.

Smite

Cooldown lowered to 40 sec.

Damage reduced at early character levels, same damage at level 18.

Clarity

Now only available on Howling Abyss

Revive

Now only available on Dominion

MasteriesMasteries that amplified summoner spells have been removed, as they unfairly penalized players who adapted to the enemy strategy by selecting summoner spells outside their preferred tree.

Masteries have been updated.”

Game Flow Changes

Summary: Itâ€™ll be a little difficult to summarize our core game flow changes here, but weâ€™re basically looking to clarify the benefits of each individual objective throughout the game. Additionally we want to tackle snowballing with our changes to alleviate some snowballing cases in the early and late game.TurretsThe player experience for last hitting under turrets was inconsistent between high Attack Damage champions and supports/mages. We’ve adjusted base turret damage and damage against minions to make last hitting under turrets more consistent across all roles

Base damage adjusted to match minion health growth

Base damage against minions increased to make last-hitting under turrets consistent

Turrets gave equal amounts of global gold for each turret, despite outer turrets being a lane objective. While some of this is beneficial, we donâ€™t believe a lane should lose simply because some other lane lost a turret too early.

Outer turrets now grant 100 global gold per player and 150 gold split among the players who kill the turret

Inner turrets now grant 125 global gold per player and 100 gold split among the players who kill the turret

Inhibitor turrets now grant 175 global gold per player

Taking outer turrets should be a team objective, but global experience on the outer turrets have some weird edge cases in lane, such as levelling up other lanes accidentally. We’re shifting this global experience to a phase of the game in which it’ll be more appreciated and less likely to cause odd level ups and snowball advantages.

Defending against a split pusher is extremely taxing, but ultimately unrewarding. We’ve added very small amounts of HP regen to inhibitor turrets to make extended split push defense grant the defending team some breathing room.

Inhibitor Turrets gained 15 hp / 5 seconds

DragonTo reduce the early snowball effect of Dragon and to give it a ‘mid-game comeback’ value, it now gives global gold and local experience based on its level. Dragon also gives additional bonus experience for Champions who are far behind in level. The Dragon level updates constantly, unlike other jungle monsters.

Dragon level minimum 6, maximum 15

Dragon local experience: 150 to 510 based on Dragon’s level, divided between nearby allied Champions

Dragon global Gold: 125 to 260 based on Dragon’s level given to all allied Champions

If killing team is lower average level than their opponents, bonus experience is gained at +25% per average level difference

Bonus experience is sharply increased for the lowest level members of the team, +15% per number of levels behind Dragon squared (max total +200% extra)

Inhibitors

Inhibitor death timers reduced to 4 minutes from 5 minutes

Inhibitors no longer grant a global buff to all minions when destroyed

Inhibitors now grant a stronger damage and durability buff to minions in their specific lane

Minion ExperienceThe fact that minions become worth more experience over time creates a severe discrepancy between champions who can farm or split push late game versus champions who are forced to siege or participate in objective control. We’re removing this as this causes champion levels to spike unnecessarily. While this has the potential to create some snowballing consequences, we’ll address that with future tuning over other systems

Lane Minions now have a level, which is equal to the average level of champions in the game.

Currently this has no effect on the game but will be expanded upon in the future.

Lane Minions are no longer worth more experience based on game time.

Minions will still become worth more gold and gain more statistics over time.

Bounty ChangesAlong with our game flow adjustments, weâ€™ve also adjusted gold income across the game to better fit what income patterns make sense in that phase.Level 1 team fights could swing the game too much, essentially ending a game before it began. Now the kill reward for very early game deaths is reduced.

Kills are worth 60% of the base reward at 2 mins, scaling to 100% at 4 mins

Players who are present for a large number of assists aren’t rewarded appropriately for their contribution to team fights

Assists are worth 50% of the kill value at 20 mins, increasing to 80% at 35 mins

Assist Bonuses

If players have 2 more assists than kills they get 30g additional gold per assist

Additional assists increase this bonus by 15 gold, capping at 60 gold

Creep Score Reducing Death SpreesProxy Farming is a fairly destructive method of playing the game, mostly due to the fact that your value as a champion isn’t being accurately updated to account for your actual value (due to farming minions).

Now every 1000 gold earned from minions/monsters reduces your Death Spree by 1

Death TimersEarly death timers were a little too punishing, given the importance of the early game. We’ve shaved a few seconds from this to help reduce early lane snowballing.

Early Game death timers have been reduced

Timers now start at 7.5 seconds instead of 12 and scale to the same values over the course of the game”

Runes and Masteries in Season 4

Â Â ricklessabandon: Hey all,

As each season comes to an end, we like to look through our out-of-game strategy systems – runes and masteries – to prepare for the new season. While we’re making some updates to masteries, we’re taking an especially thorough pass at runes as we feel they need more polish to better reflect their intended use. We’ll start with ricklessabandon and runes:

Runes

What are you actually doing for the preseason?

For now, we’re not actually going to be rolling out rune changes with the first preseason patch. Our current plan is to leave rune changes on PBE for an extended stay while we do additional focus testing.

That said, we did want to set certain expectations when it comes to our overarching philosophies and where runes will be in the new season.

What is the goal for runes?

The primary goal for runes is to tie marks, seals and glyphs to the specific wants and needs of various champion roles in League – similar to how masteries are used. Going forward, this creates a stronger association between marks and offense, seals and defense, and glyphs and utility. Fully supporting these divisions allows for stronger individual identities among different rune types – with more utility-focused glyphs (like movement speed or gold generation) or more defensively focused seals like hybrid mitigation (armor and magic resistance). This makes it easier to both balance current runes and create new runes in their specific roles.

How are runes today?

The first thing that stands out with live rune balance is that runes with the clearest power also happen to be among the strongest (flat AD, flat MR, flat armor, etc). Because of how infrequently runes are tuned, players tend to accept that certain runes provide a core set of base stats that are ‘best in slot’ and shy away from customization.

WhatÂ shouldÂ runes be like?

Ideally, runes should be used as tools to supplementÂ yourÂ play style for a given champion. Whether it’s boosting your dueling power in the laning phase or setting up for an epic late-game build, runes shouldÂ help define the framework of your unique play style. We’re giving runes clear strategic value and purpose in the new season to reinforce this point while making it easier for you to understand what to expect from your rune selection.

So the first thing we want to do is tone down the oppressively strong runes. There are currently a small handful of runes that provide more than their fair share of base stats while crowding out most other options. We might snipe off a few of the larger suspects before more comprehensive changes go out, but we’re definitely keeping an eye on the strongest outliers.

Another item on our to-do list for the new season is to establish a more consistent point where flat runes get beaten by runes that scale per level. Some of the existing crossover points don’t make sense in the framework of a typical game, so we want to clean these numbers up to clarify their strengths and weaknesses. Currently we’re looking at something like level 6 as the sweet spot where flat runes and scaling per level runes meet up. Up to level 6, flat runes will be better, while at level 6 and beyond, scaling runes become more and more powerful.

Ultimately, there are a lot of changes we’ve got planned for runes in the new season, but we’ll be taking a little more time to test them on the PBE (and to see how they fit into the regular flow of a game) before getting them out. Properly dividing runes into their three major categories (offense, defense, and utility) is something we have as a long-term vision for this new season, so keep that in mind as more changes come down the line. We’ll keep you updated as we go!

Now on to masteries with FeralPony:

Masteries

As for masteries, we aren’t making too many significant changes this season. Instead we’re targeting smaller goals and focusing on a few core philosophies with our annual mastery overhaul.

No more improved summoner spells

While specialized summoner spell masteries offer an impactful single-point option to enhance and improve playstyles, we think you’ll have even more mastery freedom if we remove these options entirely. This way, you aren’t obliged to invest mastery points specific to the summoner spells you take, summoner spells are the same regardless of your spec and you’ll have more opportunities to refine your masteries to match your playstyle.

9 mastery points define your early game. 21 points define your role.

We’re changing the function of the mastery trees in the preseason so that players who invest in the lower ranks of a tree gain specific early-game advantages, while those who commit to the more advanced masteries devote themselves to that role for the entire game. We really want you to feel like you’re committing to a playstyle when you invest heavily in a specific tree, so we’re adding advanced masteries that scale as the game goes on.

New shiny masteries

A few existing masteries have been reworked or replaced. For example, instead of granting one large attack speed boost after landing a critical strike, Frenzy now grants a slightly smaller but stackable attack speed buff. We’re also changing the Biscuiteer mastery so instead of granting a single-use biscuit, it now upgrades health potions into Rejuvenation Biscuits that also grant a little mana regen. I won’t dwell too much on the revamped masteries we have planned, as this is something you’ll discover when we roll them out (you’ve already heard of some of the support masteries!), but I just wanted to give you a sneak peek at what’s coming.

We’ll also be posting this onÂ redditÂ where we may pass through to clarify some questions. At the start of next week we’ll be doing a global recap to follow up with the most up-to-date information from questions around the world!